Freshfield suggested, “Amazons.”

“No; they were women,” Mr. Pole corrected him; “and if anything hurt them, they never cried out.  That’s what—­ha!—­our friend Pericles is trying at.  He’s a fool.  He won’t sleep to-night.  He’ll lie till he gets cold in the feet, and then tuck them up like a Dutch doll, and perspire cold till his heart gives a bound, and he’ll jump up and think his last hour’s come.  Wind on the stomach, do ye call it?  I say it’s wearing a mask!”

The bird’s-eye of the little merchant shot decisive meaning.

Two young ladies had run from his neighbourhood, making as if to lift hands to ears.  The sight of them brought Mrs. Chump to his side.  “Pole!  Pole!” she said, “is there annything wrong?”

“Wrong, Martha?” He bent to her, attempting Irish—­“Arrah, now! and mustn’t all be right if you’re here?”

She smote his cheek fondly.  “Ye’re not a bit of an Irish-man, ye deer little fella.”

“Come along and dance,” cried he imperiously.

“A pretty spectacle—­two fandangoes, when there’s singing, ye silly!” Mrs. Chump led him upstairs, chafing one of his hands, and remarking loudly on the wonder it was to see his knees constantly ‘give’ as he walked.

On the dark lawn, pressing Wilfrid’s written words for fiery nourishment to her heart, Emilia listened to the singing.

“Why do people make a noise, and not be satisfied to feel?” she said angrily to Braintop, as a great clapping of hands followed a divine aria.  Her ideas on this point would have been different in the room.

By degrees a tender delirium took hold of her sense; and then a subtle emotion—­which was partly prompted by dim rivalry with the voice that seemed to be speaking so richly to the man she loved—­set her bosom rising and falling.  She translated it to herself thus:  “What a joy it will be to him to hear me now!” And in a pause she sang clear out—­

     “Prima d’Italia amica;”

and hung on the last note, to be sure that she would be heard by him.

Braintop saw the cigarette dash into sparks on the grass.  At the same moment a snarl of critical vituperation told Emilia that she had offended taste and her father.  He shouted her name, and, striding up to her, stumbled over Braintop, whom he caught with one hand, while the other fell firmly on Emilia.

“‘Amica—­amica-a-a,’” he burlesqued her stress of the luckless note —­lowing it at her, and telling her in triumphant Italian that she was found at last.  Braintop, after a short struggle, and an effort at speech, which was loosely shaken in his mouth, heard that he stood a prisoner.  “Eh! you have not lost your cheeks,” insulted his better acquaintance with English slang.

Alternately in this queer tongue and in Italian the pair of victims were addressed.